Physical science tells us that floating through the atmosphere
are innumerable disease germs seeking a suitable nidus to settle
and propagate; that we are constantly breathing these germs into
the lungs; if the system be depleted or weakened the dangerous
microbe takes up its abode with us, and, propagating its own kind
with astonishing rapidity, undermines and ravages our health. The
only safeguard against the encroachments of this insidious enemy,
which we cannot escape, is a vigorous and healthy body with
adequate powers of resistance to repel the invader.

It is equally true that we are subject to like infectious
attacks in the spiritual order. Swarming into the atmosphere of
our spiritual lives are innumerable deadly germs ever ready to
fasten upon the depleted and weakened soul, and, propagating its
leprous (9) contagion through every faculty, destroy the
spiritual life. Against the menace of this ever-threatening
danger, whose advances we cannot avoid in our present
circumstances, the ever-healthy soul alone can be prepared. To
escape the contagion the power of resistance must be equal to the
emergencies of the attack, and that power will be in proportion
to our spiritual health. To be prepared is to be armed; but to be
prepared is not sufficient; we must posses the interior strength
to throw off the germ. There must be no condition in the soul to
make a suitable nidus for an enemy so insidious and so
efficacious as to need only the slightest point of contact whence
to spread its deadly contagion.

It is not only through the avenues of disordered passions that
this spiritual disease may gain an entrance; it may make its
inroad through the intellect, and this under a disguise often
calculated to deceive the unwary and incautious. The Trojans
admitted the enemy into their walls under the impression that
they were actually securing a valuable acquisition to their
safety, and today their fatal experience has come down to us in
the proverb: "Beware of the Greeks when they bring
gifts." Intellectual torpidity, inexperience, ignorance,
indifference, complaisance, or even virtues (10) such as
benevolence, generosity, and pity may be the unsuspecting way
open the foe, and lo! We are surprised to find him in possession
of the citadel.

That we may know our danger we must appreciate the possible
shapes in which it may come. Here is just the difficulty; the
uniform of the enemy is so various, changeable, sometimes even of
our own colors, that if we rely upon the outward semblance alone
we shall be more often deceived than certain of his identity. But
before laying down any test by which we may distinguish friend
from foe in a warfare so subtly fought within the precincts of
our own souls, let us first reconnoiter the respective positions
of either camp, and to best do this, we will consider the origin
and sources of the danger which surrounds us, for we may be
asked: Where is this foe described as so intangible as scarcely
to be apprehended by ordinary mortals? Or it may be urged: Is the
danger as proximate, as frequent, and fearful as you allege?
Whence is it anyhow? Point it out! If we know from what direction
the enemy comes, we may better appreciate the peril.

As we are addressing ourselves to those who live amidst the
peculiar circumstances of our American life, and as the spiritual
and moral conditions which obtain in this (11) country, make up
the moral and spiritual atmosphere in which we have our being, it
is in the relation of our surroundings to ourselves as well as
ourselves to our surroundings, that we shall find the answer to
our question. Let us then consider these surrounds in a general
way for the moment. First as to some patent facts. The population
of this country is at present something over sixty three millions
(1890 census). Of these ten millions are Catholics, and according
to their claim, twenty millions Protestants, leaving a population
of thirtythree millions or more who do not profess any form of
Christianity at all. Amongst the twenty million Protestants every
shade and variety of belief in the Christian dispensation finds
easy lodgment, from the belief in the Incarnation and
Consubstantiation to the rejection of the Divinity of Christ
altogether in the vacuous creed of Unitarianism. In this scale of
heresy the adjustments of creeds are loose and easy. Lack of any
decisive authority renders any exact standard of belief
impossible. A Protestant may freely range from one end of the
scale to the other and still be considered orthodox according to
Protestant estimates. A lose, indefinite belief in Christ, either
as God redeeming the world (12) or even as a great ethical
teacher, not God Himself though sent by God, suffices to place
the Protestant within the compass of his own standard of
orthodoxy. Any specific expression of dogma or of particular
truths, bound up in the acceptance of by any one sect or
denomination, can find no authoritative exaction, for the
differences between the sects, in the last resort, become mere
differences of private opinion, dependent upon nothing but the
caprice or choice of the individual.

Outside of these various bodies of loosely professed
Christians, stands a still larger mass of our population who are
either absolutely indifferent to Christianity as a creed or
positively reject it. In practice the distinction is of little
moment whether they hold themselves merely indifferent or
positively hostile. In other words we have here to reckon with a
body, to all practical purposes, infidel. This mass comprises
over half of our population, holding itself aloof from
Christianity, and in some instances virulently antagonizing it.
In distinctly religious opposition to this mass of infidelity and
to Protestantism, Catholics find themselves sharply and radically
opposed. Heresy and infidelity are irreconcilable with
Catholicity. "Who is not with me is (13) against me are the
words of Our Lord Himself, for denial of Catholic truth is the
radical and common element of both heresy and infidelity. The
difference between them is merely a matter of degree. One denies
less, the other more. Protestantism with its sliding scale of
creeds is simply an inclined plane into the abyss of positive
unbelief. It is always virtual infidelity, its final outcome open
infidelity, as the thirty-three millions of unbelievers in this
country stand witness.

We live in the midst of this religious anarchy. Fifty-three
millions of our population is anti-Catholic. From this mass,
heretical and infidel, exhales an atmosphere filled with germs
poisonous and fatal to Catholic life, if permitted to take root
in the Catholic heart. The mere force of gravitation, which the
larger mass ever exercises upon the smaller, is a power which the
most energetic vigor alone can resist. A deadly inertia under
this dangerous influence is apt to creep over the souls of the
incautious and is only to be overcome by the liveliest exercise
of Catholic faith. To live amidst an heretical and infidel
population without enervation requires a robust religious
constitution. And to this danger we are daily exposed, ever
coming into contact in a thousand ways, in almost every (14)
relation of life, with anti-Catholic thought and customs. But
outside of this spiritual inertia, a danger rather passive than
active in its influence, our nonCatholic surroundings beget a
still greater menace.

It is natural that Protestantism and infidelity should find
public expression. What our sixty million non-Catholic population
think in these matters naturally seeks and finds open expression.
They have their organs and their literature, where we find their
current opinions publicly uttered. Their views upon religion,
morality, politics, the constitution of society are perpetually
marshaled before us. In the pulpit and the press they are
reiterated day after day. In magazine and newspaper they
constantly speak from every line. Our literature is permeated and
saturated with non-Catholic dogmatism. On all sides do we find
this opposing spirit. We cannot escape from it. It enfolds and
embraces us. Its breath is perpetually in our faces. It enters in
by eye and ear. It enswathes us in its offensive garments from
birth to death. It now soothes and flatters; now hates and
curses, now threatens and now praises. But it is most dangerous
when it comes to us under the form of "liberality." It
is especially powerful for seduction in this guise. It is under
this aspect we wish (15) to consider it. For it is as Liberalism
that Protestantism and Infidelity make their most devastating
inroads upon the domain of the Faith.

Out of these unCatholic and anti-Catholic conditions, thus
predominating amongst us, springs this monster of our times,
Liberalism.